Page 6 of Love's Ace

I was going to kill him.

I forced myself to stand without worrying about my shoulder or the blood I could feel spilling in rivulets along my skin. It washed to the ground with the cascading rain, anyway.

“Look at you, all worked up. You’re barely changed and you’re already rabid.” The man’s voice was silk, sweet, honeyed.

Hatred.

I lunged for him, and he sidestepped my movement, leaving me with nothing more than the sensation of my fingertipsbrushing a feather. My vision blinked in and out as the pain faded and reappeared so quickly it made me dizzy—it made me even more angry to see how he was taunting me.

He was some creature with feathers who could take away the torment I’d been feeling for weeks—for my entire life—and he was taunting me.

Help me.

The sane part of me tried to remember how to form the words on my lips, but when I inhaled to speak, all that came out was a senseless growl.

He laughed again.

“Right. I guess I should make this quick before you completely change, hm?”

His fingers snapped at his shoulder, and he drew an arrow from thin air. I watched it materialize between his fingers, all red and liquid, like heart’s blood. He wasn’t even looking when he fired it, instead glancing over his shoulder to make sure the two men had made it out of the alleyway safely.

Iwas looking when it slammed into the middle of my chest.

Pain.

Pain and… something else.

Something empty and sucking, drawing and needy. I think he noticed it too, because his gaze snapped to the shot he’d fired, painted with confusion and disbelief.

“What the fuck?” He stepped forward, his eyes focused on the burning in my heart, the sting he’d notched between my ribs.

He was slack-jawed and distracted.

It was enough.

I charged forward without thinking, without caring, and I didn’t stop until we were both slammed against the wall.

The arrow lodged deeper into my chest, stealing away what breath I had left.

But it wasenough.

I’d done what I wanted, because when I looked at the ground between us, the red quill of the arrow was at my feet.

The splintered shaft was skewered through the center of his chest, connecting us together.

Making him bleed. Just like me.

Liquid heat.

Fire.

And then…

There was a soft moment of clarity when I looked up, because his eyes were wide and shocked.

And they were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.Purple flowers. Like a dream.

For a moment, I could breathe again.

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